


hopeless

by Prim_the_Amazing



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Falling In Love, M/M, Pre-Canon, in hindsight this timeline doesnt quite make sense, oh well, some tim and sasha
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-20 05:14:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20222395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prim_the_Amazing/pseuds/Prim_the_Amazing
Summary: And then there’s Jonathan Sims who gives him a single glance, a shallow nod, and then turns back to his work without a word, frowning at the file on his desk like it’s personally failed him in some way.Tim laughs and claps his shoulder. “Don’t worry about it,” he says, “he’s like that with everyone. It’s nothing personal.”“Right,” he says, relieved to know that he hasn’t earned some kind of special animosity from the nicest guy in the office. He’s just… reserved. Preoccupied with his work. That’s fine. Martin will just stay out of his way. Easy.-Martin gets a crush.





	hopeless

Martin wasn’t actually  _ expecting _ to hear back from the Magnus Institute. Sure, he’d tried, but he’d always assumed that he’d have to end up working the day and night shifts at two seperate minimum wage jobs and be perpetually exhausted and underpaid. He didn’t go to college. He could barely pay enough attention to graduate high school, with how worried he was about his mum, so his grades didn’t look all that impressive either. 

CV Martin though, he sees with dawning horror as he re-reads the hundredth application he’d written at three in the morning in a fog of caffeine and financial despair, graduated with a near perfect GPA from Oxford and a Masters in parapsychology and is also thirty-four years old. This would be the point where he’d started mixing his coffee with his energy drinks and stopped only applying to things that he thought he could at least convincingly fake and also showing a single iota of self restraint, humility, or common sense in his lying. 

The second anyone thinks to so much as glance at any corroborating evidence the entire fiction is going to go up in flames. Martin is going to be fired in disgrace one week in. He might get sued. Arrested? He doesn’t know but the fact that he even has to wonder means nothing good. The only thing he has to protect himself from his horrible fate is the sheer audacity of it. Seriously, Oxford? A Masters in a field he hasn’t read a single textbook in? A 3.5 GPA?  _ Thirty-four?  _

He puts his head in his hands and keens. And then he responds to Elias Bouchard’s email that he’s so happy for this opportunity and will be moving to London and ready to get to work within the week. 

He _ really _ needs the money. 

Miraculously, he does actually find a flat to move into where the transport to work will be less than an hour if he takes the tube. It’s a small, dingy place that he can barely afford, but it’s his and it works. 

He’s never lived alone before. It feels… weird. On the one hand, he can walk around without trousers on and recite his poetry out loud to hear if it sounds right without being embarrassed. On the other, he keeps making too much food, too much tea, and waking up too early because he needs to get breakfast ready for his mum except oh wait. And then he gets out his phone, and if he’s feeling particularly like he’s all alone and doesn’t know what he’s doing and it’s all going to come falling down around him, he caves in and tries to call her. And is told that Emilia Blackwood would not like to receive his call, thank you. 

He starts writing her letters instead. He doesn’t get any back, but he can at least pretend that she reads them. It’s never been about  _ him  _ getting something, anyways. He’s just needs to know for a fact that she has something, anyone at all. She might be making friends at the care home, for all he knows. She doesn’t tell him anything. She might be having a great time. That’s a nice thought. 

But if she isn’t making friends, if she’s feeling as lonely and off balance as he is, then she’ll have his letters at the very least. And that’s all that  _ he  _ needs, he tells himself. 

(He still caves in and tries to call her sometimes.)

The Magnus Institute, despite its reputation as a place where drunks and prankster teens can have their lies treated as something that’s actually worth anyone’s time, looks intimidatingly like A Real Serious Workplace That People Need Degrees For. When Martin walks through the front doors, nervously wondering if that was even the entrance he should’ve used since it’s not like he’s here to ask for help with a ghost haunting his apartment or anything, there’s a  _ secretary _ at a  _ desk _ in the  _ lobby.  _ She’s got her hair up in a very neat, very tight bun, and she smiles at him with straight white teeth and red painted lips. She looks like a  _ professional.  _

Martin has been in this building for less than one minute, has exchanged zero words with anyone, and he already desperately wants to turn around and run away. 

“Hello, I’m Rosie, how can I help you?” 

“Um,” Martin says, and he’d  _ specifically _ told his reflection this morning not to have that be the first thing he said to his new vastly more qualified and non lying coworkers. “I’m Martin Blackwood? I’m, I’m the new researcher?” 

No. Be  _ confident. _ He’s  _ graduated from Oxford. _ He’s  _ thirty-four. _ Get it together! 

“I’m Martin Blackwood and I’m the new researcher,” he repeats himself, without the uncertain lilt as if he’s waiting for Rosie to tell him that he’s terribly mistaken and shouldn’t be here. She would be right, but she doesn’t know that. He desperately hopes. 

“Oh, yes,” she says, notedly not pointing her finger at him and shouting  _ imposter. _ “Elias told me to expect you. One of the other researchers will be right along to take care of you.” 

And then he stutters his thank you, a bit disbelieving that he’s gotten even this far, and Rosie calls whoever’s been assigned to show him around. Is he actually going to get away with this? Wait, no, he can’t go letting his guard down yet. He hasn’t even met a ‘fellow researcher’ yet. If anyone will be able to see through him like glass, it’ll be one of them. And he’s about to have to spend time with one, and exchange pleasant small talk like he isn’t a complete fraud who has no idea what he’s doing. He starts sweating. 

Three and a half minutes later, the person who’s most likely to get him fired shows up. He’s tall, broad at the shoulders, fit, and handsome. That all somehow makes the idea of being exposed worse; not only will he be humiliated and jobless, stranded in a flat in London, but it’ll start with a very good looking fellow with a friendly smile looking at him with dawning suspicion and realization and going  _ wait a minute… _

“Hey, I’m Tim Stoker,” he says, and puts out his hand to shake it. “You must be the new guy.” 

Martin takes it reflexively, only belatedly internally wincing at how clammy his palm must be. He gives Tim his friendliest, albeit almost certainly obviously nervous, smile. But it’s not that weird to be nervous on your first day at the job, right? Tim shakes it and doesn’t stop looking like a nice guy to have a drink with and maybe a bit of a snog. 

Martin flushes and averts his eyes.  _ Not _ the time for thoughts like that. 

“Uh, yeah,” and he did it  _ again, _ mum hates it (hated it) when he uses meaningless filler words like he just really needs to make it clear right off the bat that he loves to hesitate, doesn’t know the meaning of the word confidence, and is uncertain near constantly. That is not the image he should be putting forth here, people in their thirties with degrees don’t feel like frauds who don’t really belong. He makes himself meet Tim’s eyes. “I’m Martin Blackwood. Pleased, pleased to meet you.” 

Tim starts walking, and after a too long moment Martin realizes that he should be following, and hurries after him. “Alright, let’s get you the grand tour.” He points to a door that they pass. “That’s the Archives. That’s Gertrude’s domain. She’s, like, eighty so she doesn’t come to any of the parties, which is a shame because old ladies are pretty damn good drinkers in  _ my _ experience. Don’t worry about it, you’ll almost certainly never have to go there. That’s Artefact Storage. Definitely  _ never  _ go there, you’ll get cursed and die. That’s the bad bathroom, it’s only got three toilets and one of them doesn’t flush, one of them has a stall that doesn’t lock, and the third has a broken seat so you’ll have to look out so that you don’t cut your ass while you’re sitting on it. That’s the break room, it’s not safe to hide delicious-looking lunches in the fridge, by the way. That’s the good bathroom. That’s Elias’ office, head boss man. That’s the library, you’ll end up there a lot. And _ here’s _ the research wing!” 

Martin blinks at the influx of information. There’s about eight people milling about the room, reading files on their desks and squinting at their laptops and looking back and forth between books spread open in front of them and talking quietly with each other or tapping at keyboards or speaking softly into their phones. Their ages range from mid twenties to late seventies, and he’s relieved to notice that he got pretty close to the mark how business-casual the dress code around here is. There’s a few people who look especially neat, but he doesn’t think he sticks out too much, except with being new and all. 

“Thanks,” he says, but Tim’s already moving on. Martin follows him to a mostly empty desk. 

“Stace, the new guy’s here. I’m afraid you can’t sprawl your mess onto the spare desk any longer.” 

A woman in her forties with her hair in a low ponytail groans good naturedly and starts picking up files, papers, and coffee cups and transplanting them onto the already towering mess on her own desk, and Martin automatically moves to help her. Unthinkingly cleaning up messes is a bit in his bones at this point. She gives him a smile, Tim introduces them, and then it quickly spirals out into Martin being shown off to everyone in the office. 

There’s Stacy Miller who apparently only Tim calls Stace and gets away with it. There’s Henry Davison, who is the oldest person in the room and wearing hearing aids. There’s Ida Wells, who’s the youngest person in the room and also wearing hearing aids. There’s Edward Saunders, who has a handshake firm enough to make Martin worry for his finger bones. There’s Sasha James, who politely greets him and then goes back to skimming a thick book in her lap while simultaneously typing at her keyboard very quickly without looking or getting a key wrong, it looks like. There’s Emma Hansen, who has such a thick Welsh accent that he has trouble understanding anything she says, which he panickedly fumbles his way through. There’s Bertha George, who tells him that he reminds her of her son. 

And then there’s Jonathan Sims who gives him a single glance, a shallow nod, and then turns back to his work without a word, frowning at the file on his desk like it’s personally failed him in some way. 

Tim laughs and claps his shoulder. “Don’t worry about it,” he says, “he’s like that with everyone. It’s nothing personal.” 

“Right,” he says, relieved to know that he hasn’t earned some kind of special animosity from the nicest guy in the office. He’s just… reserved. Preoccupied with his work. That’s fine. Martin will just stay out of his way. Easy. 

Martin, while frantically trying to act like he definitely knows what the actual tasks of a paranormal researcher is, learns what the actual tasks of a paranormal researcher is. He thinks he might come off as a bit… incompetent, on the way, but no one’s gone to tell Elias about it anyways. So it must be fine. Not _ too  _ weird. He tries to make up for it by making the tea, bringing in pastries about once a week, pretending to be deeply interested in Ida’s rambling stories about her pets, and working late hours. 

He always leaves before Jon, though. That’s what he prefers to go by, he’s gathered, although he has kept to his decision of avoiding him. It’s surprisingly easy, even though he sits only two desks away from Martin for eight hours (more, really) every day. He’s not very outgoing, always focused on his work instead of participating in any of the ‘how was your weekend’ talk. He doesn’t go out for drinks with them on Friday. He doesn’t go out for lunch with any of them. The rest of the staff seem to treat this as a given, not acting surprised or disappointed when he opts out on everything that isn’t mandatory. 

He tries, once, to stay longer than Jon. More out of curiosity to see when he  _ does _ leave than anything else. During the last hour, he’s glancing up at Jon in curious disbelief more often than he’s looking down at his work, and he leaves in the end once he starts getting worried about going to bed too late on a weekday. He leaves Jon behind in the dark office, all alone, saying an awkward goodbye because it would feel so strange to leave him without a word. Jon, absorbed in his work, doesn’t seem to notice. 

Martin wonders if maybe Jon out stayed him in the office on purpose, like it’s a point of pride for him to be the last one to punch out. He hopes so. He  _ really _ hopes that those aren’t the hours that he normally keeps. 

… It would explain how perpetually tired he looks, though. There’s always tired bruises underneath his dark eyes, partially hidden behind his glasses. He hadn’t really noticed before he got curious about it. 

“Hey, buddy,” Tim says, clapping a hand on his back, and Martin jumps in his seat like he was doing something _ bad _ instead of just thoughtfully looking at the back of Jonathan Sims’ head. More like the side. He’s got a bit of a diagonal profile shot at this angle--

“Um, yeah?” he asks, ripping his eyes away. 

Tim grins at him. True to Martin’s first impression of him, he  _ is _ a friendly guy who’s great to have a drink with. (He has not been confident enough to check out the snog thing. Tim’s way cooler than him, and Martin still starts sweating every time he remembers too acutely how he has not exactly earned his place here like everyone else.) “Wanna go grab lunch at the deli at the corner together with me and Sasha?” 

“Oh, sure! Sounds great! Let me just--” and he starts fumbling around for his wallet to make sure that he doesn’t forget it. He finds it, stands up, and moves to follow Tim and Sasha, already idly chatting with each other. Looks behind him. All of the other researchers have left for their own lunches, either in the breakroom or elsewhere, or are off in the library. Jon, however, remains behind, slouched over his work.  _ (That’s bad for his back, _ a voice at the back of Martin’s mind pipes up worriedly.) 

“Should we… invite Jon?” he asks Tim and Sasha lowly as he approaches them. 

Tim barks out a good natured laugh. “Yeah, good luck with that.” 

“He’ll just say no,” Sasha advises him. 

“Oh,” Martin says, which, yeah, obviously. Of course he would. That fits with everything else he’s seen of him so far. Really, why did he even ask? 

“I don’t think he eats lunch at all,” Tim says as they walk out of the Institute. 

“He doesn’t,” Sasha says, like it’s an objective fact. 

_ “What,”  _ Martin says. 

Tim gives him a strange look. Martin doesn’t notice it. 

“I’ve had a couple of days where I was too busy to leave my desk when Elias put me on something urgent,” she explains. “And he never got up once to eat lunch during those days. He just doesn’t eat from when he punches in to when he punches out.” 

“That’s… but… he works such long hours,” Martin says, alarmed and incredulous. “That’s not good for him!” 

“He’s just one of those guys who lives for his job, y’know,” Tim says. “No social life or hobbies outside of it. There’s always at least one in every office.” 

That’s so sad. Even Martin has his poetry and books and Netflix and letters and lunches and drinks out with his coworkers. 

“Doesn’t mean that he has to stop eating,” he mutters, and doesn’t entirely enjoy the sandwich he ends up buying. 

This is around the time that Paying Attention To Jon becomes a Thing. 

It’s not a conscious decision or anything, but he  _ is _ on his mind, and as Martin discovers, he  _ does  _ have a perfect view of him from his desk, so he can just sort of casually glance at him out of the corner of his eye without moving his head, or pretend to stare at a random point in space as he definitely thinks over all of this ghost research business and nothing else off topic or out of his lane at all. 

Jon had registered as tall and thin to him earlier, but now that he looks at him it’s more like tall and  _ underfed. _ The bones of his wrist as he holds his pen up and scowls down at the sentence he’s just written stand out starkly. His cheeks have a bit of a hollow look to them, and now that Martin thinks about it, he could probably pick Jon up and break him like a twig without a sweat. He isn’t even particularly strong, just big. Not that he would ever do something like that! But just, the thought that he  _ could  _ do it, that  _ someone  _ could, makes him feel a little bit protective. 

Which is ridiculous and stupid and dumb. Jon is a grown adult man that Martin is in no way responsible for. He’s got no idea how old Jon is, but if he’d have to judge by looks, he’s at least a decade older. (A decade older than his real age, at least.) 

He firmly puts the thoughts out of his mind. Or at least, that’s what he thinks he does until he blurts out at lunch with Tim and Sasha the next day, “How old is Jon?” 

They blink at the non sequitur. He flushes. “Um, I was just curious,” he weakly defends himself. “I don’t know and it’s kind of been bugging me, I guess?”

“He’s twenty-eight,” Sasha says. 

“He’s  _ what,” _ Martin says. 

“Stress ages a person.” She shrugs. 

“It’s so sad,” Tim says, not entirely sincerely, Martin thinks. 

Martin stares. Jon is his age. Jon is _ his _ age?  _ How?  _ He’s, he’s so  _ serious.  _ And tired. And the few times he’s heard him speak he’s spoken with this very stuffy academic sort of accent that makes him sound like a tenured professor. 

“Christ,” he says. “He needs a  _ nap.” _

Tim bursts out laughing. 

Martin gets up to make himself a cup of tea, and as usual he asks if anyone else wants one while he’s up. Sasha, Ida, and Henry all chime in that they’d love some tea, thank you, Martin. He gets the kettle on, putters around fetching mugs and picking out tea bags and making sugar and cream ready. He knows that Ida likes hers with a teaspoon of honey in it, Sasha’s with a squeeze of lemon, and Henry for at least a third of his cup to be full of milk instead of tea. He knows that Ida’s favorite cup is the one with the witty slogan on it, Sasha the pink one, and Henry the one with the polka dots. He knows what blend they each prefer. He just likes to know those sort of things, the small ones that bring an unconscious smile to people's faces. Small gestures to show that he cares. 

While the water’s heating up, his gaze wanders over to Jon. He’s hunched over his desk as usual, focusing on his work, as usual. He’s thoughtlessly nibbling on a pen, his brow furrowed in deep thought. 

His brown skin looks a little washed out, in an unhealthy, overworked sort of way. 

Trying not to overthink it, Martin gets another cup out of the cupboard. Jon hadn’t asked for one when Martin had asked the room at large, but Jon also always seems to need to be called on at least four times before he comes back from wherever he goes when he’s intensely reading something. Maybe he hadn’t heard. Maybe he’s thirsty. Maybe he wants a cup of tea. It’s not a big deal. It’s no trouble. It’s not like Martin’s specifically making it for him. It’s really no issue to just get out another cup. 

The kettle starts whistling, and Martin gratefully dives for it before he can start twisting himself into knots over something so simple. He pours out five cups, and prepares them just the way he knows everyone likes them. 

Well. Except for Jon. Some wild guessing there. He takes out a plain no nonsense white mug for him, picking after only three long seconds fumbling over which kind of tea bag to use his own favorite on a whim, and then adds in just a dash of milk and sugar. And is instantly convinced that he just made a mistake and Jon is going to  _ hate _ this _ horrendously _ made tea.

Which isn’t a big deal, he sternly reminds himself. So what? He’ll just leave it out on his desk to go cold, then. Who cares? 

… He’s overthinking this. Damn it. He carefully picks up Sasha, Ida, and Henry’s mugs and carries them over to their desks to polite thank yous and brief smiles that he returns. And then he takes his and Jon’s mugs, tells himself that it would be an overreaction to just pour it out into the sink and hope that no one notices, and walks in the direction of Jon’s desk. Turns right around back into the little kitchenette. Hunts down the sleeve of biscuits in the cupboard like a man possessed and sets two of them on a little plate that he puts Jon’s cup on. Heads off in Jon’s direction again. Changes his mind, goes back into the kitchenette, gets another biscuit so that there’s three of them on his plate. There, that’s a much better number. Much more natural. Walks towards Jon, who has noticed approximately none of this, thank god. Sets it down on his desk. 

After a moment, Jon looks up, blinking up at him with owlish bafflement like Martin’s just woken him up from a sleep deep enough to leave him disoriented. 

“Um, ah,” he says, and is very tired of himself for a little moment. “I just got you a little cup of tea. And some biscuits. Since I was already making some.” 

Jon still looks confused and a little bit disgruntled at being confused. 

“I’m Martin,” he says, suddenly convinced that Jon has not only forgotten his name, but never learned it in the first place. “Martin Blackwood.” 

“I know,” Jon says, and Martin feels weirdly terrified and excited to have the full brunt of his attention for perhaps the first time since he started working here. No, definitely the first time. He would’ve remembered it if it had happened before. Jon’s dark eyes are astonishingly piercing, like if he looks at Martin hard enough then he can peel him apart like an onion and read his mind. 

“I’m thirty-four,” he says for some god awful reason, and this is when he starts internally screaming at himself.  _ Why  _ did he say that? He didn’t have to say that! Sure, it’s on his CV, but Jon’s his  _ coworker.  _ Who knows how old their coworker is!? No one! Definitely not  _ Jon. _ He decides to make his escape immediately. “I’m just going to-- go. Back to my desk.” 

“... Right,” Jon says, and narrows his eyes at him a little bit like Martin’s behaving very suspiciously. It doesn’t seem to even occur to him to thank him or give him a quick perfunctorily polite smile. Martin beats a hasty retreat back to his desk. 

A minute later, once the weight of Jon’s downright tangible attention lifts away from him, he peeks up. Jon is giving the cup a dubious look. He reluctantly picks up. Martin holds his breath. Jon takes one cautious sip. Doesn’t immediately grimace or do a spit take. Martin releases the breath. Jon doesn’t make a small pleased smile at a cup of tea perfectly tailored to his tastes, but his posture seems to relax very slightly, so it can’t be horrible. Martin wonders if he can casually find out how exactly Jon most likes his tea, and if he’ll give that small smile if he figures it out. 

Not for any particular reason. Martin just likes knowing those sorts of small things about the people around him. Small gestures to show that he cares. A completely normal amount. He’d do the same for anyone in the office. He  _ has _ done the same for everyone in the office. 

He keeps discreetly glancing at Jon for the next ten minutes, and is perhaps more pleased than warranted when Jon keeps absentmindedly drinking the tea until the cup is empty, looking rather endearingly confused and indignant for a second when there turns out to be no more tea left. 

(Unnoticed by him, Tim leans back in his chair, widens his eyes, raises his eyebrows, and makes a face at Stacy, who trades identical faces with Ida, who shares the sentiment with Henry, who sends the facial message along to Bertha, who shoots the look along to Edward, who shares it with Emma, who passes it along to Sasha, who carefully keeps it to herself instead of handing it off to Tim, thus finishing the circle of stupidity.

Not everyone in the office is as oblivious to certain things like Jon is.  _ Most  _ people aren’t.) 

Jon is, technically, Martin’s peer. Not just in age, secretly, but in his position at the Institute. But Jon’s clearly been at this much longer than him, and that’s not even mentioning the fact that he’s  _ actually _ got the education that Martin’s supposed to have. Unless he’s a CV fraudster as well, which he somehow seriously doubts. Jon has this legitimate professional air to him that makes it difficult to imagine him wearing casual clothes or inhabiting spaces that aren’t full of paperwork and books. He’s not nervous, he’s not uncertain, he’s not sorry. He’s confident in a very effortless (and snippy) sort of way. 

Tim good naturedly calls it Stick Up His Ass Posh Arrogant Bastard syndrome, and Sasha has to bracingly pat Martin’s back as he chokes on his drink. Somehow encouraged, he then goes on to suggest that he just needs to get laid, which is when Martin, apparently habitual liar at this point, invents an entire smoking habit just so that he can go out for some air. 

So, yes. Jon is his peer. But it doesn’t exactly  _ feel _ like it. Jon may look like he hasn’t slept in two days, his dark hair may be perpetually messy from his habit of tugging at it, and he may have a coffee stain on his sleeve more often than not, but he also definitely looks like he  _ deserve _ s to be there. He looks like a proper  _ researcher.  _ And Martin has always had a hard time feeling like he deserves to be anywhere, even when he hasn’t committed fraud to be there in the first place. 

So when Jon absentmindedly asks him to and fetch a book from the library for him in a tone so brusque that some might call it a presumptuous order, he does it without really thinking about it. He’d needed to go the library soon anyways, for the books on kelpies that the author he was currently reading kept cross referencing. He sets Jon’s unasked for tea with biscuits down on his desk, and goes. 

Jon’s stopped looking surprised and suspicious at the appearance of the tea, and has instead started acting either annoyed or completely oblivious, like it’s being supplied to him by invisible fairies, just giving an unthinking hum of assent when Martin arrives with it. He always notices it before it goes cold, by smell, Martin thinks. He experiments and watches Jon either wrinkle his nose with distaste or empty his cup more rapidly than usual (he never smiles at it), and adjusts and adjusts, because it turns out that no one in the office knows how Jon likes his tea and when he tries to ask Jon himself he just tells him that he doesn’t need to give him tea at all. 

He doesn’t, Martin knows. He just. Wants to. If Martin doesn’t give him something to eat and drink, he doesn’t eat or drink during his long shifts at work at all. It makes him worry and fret. He knows that it's none of his business. Jon isn’t his sick mother or his pet. He’s a grown man who can take care of himself… and just chooses not to. He can’t stop noticing it, though, and helping just a little bit makes it less distracting and worrying, so that he can focus on his work. 

Nevermind how he’s always distracted in those five to ten minutes that Jon sips at his tea, wondering if he likes it, if he hates it. After  _ that _ he can focus on his work. 

… He can’t hate it that much, though, even when he’s not so absorbed by his work that he can’t act annoyed at Martin’s interruption. He always drinks it, after all. And all of the biscuits too. 

“You know, you don’t need to let Jon boss you around,” Sasha says out of nowhere one day. He’s out taking lunch with her and Tim as usual, a casual group of friends that he’d just naturally fallen into. Tim and Sasha are nice and fun and smart. The fact that they want to hang out with him makes him feel kind of bubbly, in a good way. He never had much time for friends in school, always rushing home at the end of the day to buy groceries and start dinner. They make it easier to not cave in and call his mom at the end of the day, even if his nerves start bubbling up if he lets himself think about the fact that he’s lying to them. It just strikes him out of nowhere sometimes, completely random and out of his control. 

“What?” he asks. 

“She means how you’re slowly turning into Jon’s secretary,” Tim says helpfully. 

Martin flushes. “I-- I am not. I’m just helping.” 

“He can be pretty snappish, but he listens to boundaries,” Sasha goes on. “If you just distance yourself and put your foot down then he’ll respect that.” 

_ “ _ Guys,” he says plaintively. 

Tim snickers. “I don’t think Martin wants much distance from Jon, Sash.” 

“ _ Tim,” _ he says, more plaintively, face going hotter. 

“We’re just saying,” she says. “Jon’s not a bad guy, but he can be unpleasant to be around sometimes, if you don’t stand up for yourself.” 

The fact that Martin is the type of person who doesn’t stand up for himself much goes unspoken, but very loudly. He straightens his back, embarrassed and a little indignant. “I’m _ fine,”  _ he says, as firmly as he can manage. 

Tim shrugs. “Well, you heard the man.” 

“Alright,” Sasha says peaceably. “So long as you know that we’ll help you if he starts bullying you.” 

“He wouldn’t  _ bully _ me,” he says, astonished at the idea. Oh, sure, Jon can be kind of… very… cranky, and sharp, and maybe even a little bit not-nice. Dry, withering, judgmental. But he’s not a  _ bully.  _

“Not on purpose,” she says, and turns back to her lunch, easily letting Tim change the subject to something lighter. 

Jon is confident, and he’s academic, and he makes Martin want to take care of him. He’s gone over that. But, the thing is, the more he looks at him, the more he realizes that he’s  _ beautiful.  _ Not in the conventional movie star way, the way Tim is. But his fingers are long and his hands are lovely and his wrists are so bony that Martin wants to cover them with his hands and keep them warm and close and safe. He’s got hair that he wants to touch and see how it feels and eyes that he wants to write poems about. He wants to know how his tired face looks when he’s asleep, when he’s truly resting and not tense or annoyed or turning the entirety of his being towards trying to unravel some sort of mystery. The premature graying of his hair, the creases in his face that makes him think of books, his lips, his waist, his voice… 

Martin looks at the clock, and realizes that he’s been looking at Jon for the last ten straight minutes, completely zoned out, and that this is also definitely not the first time that he’s done this. And then, in the same random cruel way that his brain will remind of the CV fraud at the worst moments, he thinks  _ don’t be so obvious.  _

He flushes and hurriedly turns back to his work. He thinks of Tim saying  _ I don’t think Martin wants much distance from Jon, _ in such a friendly amused matter of fact way, like it was nothing new. He abruptly wants for the ground to open up and swallow him whole. He feels suddenly acutely aware of everyone of his coworkers sitting around him. He knows that Jon hadn’t noticed him looking, because he’s been staring at him like a hopeless loser for the last ten minutes and would have noticed if he so much as twitched in his direction, but what about everyone else? 

Hesitantly, he looks up. Immediately sees Stacy lean in towards Emma and grinningly whisper something to her that makes her giggle. He quickly looks back down at his notes. 

It’s nothing, he tells himself. He had the same problem during highschool. Just assumed that every time a small group of friends nearby burst into laughter after whispering and giggling to each other that they were laughing at him. Which was self centered and stupid. The world doesn’t revolve around him. No one notices his mistakes as much as he does. People can pay attention to and laugh at other things. 

His neck still burns, and he very deliberately doesn’t look in Jon’s direction for the rest of the shift. 

Martin may be developing a bad habit of daydreaming in Jon’s direction about touching his hair and sliding his fingers through his, but he’s not worried so much as a little bit flustered. This isn’t anything serious, after all. It isn’t even a crush. He’s just gay and feeling a little bit lonely because even when he spends time with people he feels like there’s wall of lies between them. Jon just happens to be kind of pretty in a strange tired way, and most importantly, he’s  _ there.  _ It’s nothing more than that. 

Nevermind that Tim Stoker, confirmed bisexual with a penchant for fun and friendly casual sex, affable and affectionate and ridiculously handsome, is _ also _ there, and much less prickly to boot. Tim’s Martin’s _ friend.  _ He doesn’t want to go and ruin that just for a snog. Jon’s just-- just safer. Completely impossible. So it doesn’t matter if Martin thinks of flashes of his face sometimes when he’s having a wank, of his voice and his eyes and the heavy nerve wracking weight of his full attention. It doesn’t  _ mean  _ anything. 

Martin’s doing fine, and everything’s under control. 

It’s one of those late evenings where Martin and Jon are the last ones left. Martin doesn’t burn the midnight oil like Jon does. Edward left only ten minutes ago. As soon as he finishes returning his books for the day to the library, he’ll be leaving. Jon’s going to stay for hours longer, he’s sure. A small wave of despairing exasperated fondness washes over him, and he’s so distracted when he hears the yelp from a few bookshelves over that he drops the book he was putting back and it falls onto his face. He splutters, picks it up, puts it back into not quite the right place, and hurries over to see if everything’s okay. 

It’s Jon, pressed up against the shelf on Medieval history like someone’s got a knife to his throat, even though he’s entirely alone. Martin hadn’t even realized that he was also in the library. 

“Jon?” he asks, worried, feeling a bit like someone just got him with a jump scare. Jon doesn’t look over at Martin. It’s hard to tell in the dim lighting of the library, but he looks ashen. “Are you alright?” 

“Fine,” he grits out between his clenched teeth, not sounding fine at all. “It’s just-- very big.” 

Martin follows Jon eyes, and sees. “Oh!” he says, surprised, and takes a few steps forward and crouches. Jon makes a strangled sound and doesn’t move. “You _ are _ a big girl, aren’t you?” 

It’s a spider, as big as Martin’s hand, sitting next to the shelf. He coos at it. It’s a lovely specimen. He reaches out his hand. 

“Don’t--!” Jon says, right before Martin scoops it up. That unfreezes it, makes it scurry across his hand, and he turns it around to keep it in sight as he stands up. He cups his over hand around it to keep it trapped in his palm. 

“Be right back,” he says, and walks over towards the nearest window. He opens it, holds his hand outside towards the wall, and waits until it scurries off and away before closing the window back up. He walks back towards Jon. He looks _ faint.  _

“Are you okay?” he asks, reaching out to steady him. Jon flinches away like he’s made of fire. 

_ “Don’t _ touch me,” he says tightly, which is a bit more hostile than his usual. Martin blinks at him. Jon cringes a little bit, and if Martin didn’t know any better he’d think that Jon was feeling guilty for saying something rude, which would be a first. “I… don’t like… spiders.” He makes himself say, like each words pains him. 

“Oh,” he says, and yeah, that makes sense in context. “You shouldn’t be.” 

Jon scowls at him, and okay, that was clearly the wrong thing to say. 

“But we can’t help our phobias!” he hurries to correct himself. 

Jon huffs and dusts himself off, as if the spider had come anywhere near him. “Well, thank you for getting rid of it, I suppose.” 

That might possibly be the first time Jon’s thanked him for anything. He can’t help but beam, no matter how grudging his tone had been. “No problem!” 

He spends a moment just smiling at Jon, and doesn’t realize how awkward it must be until Jon gives him a pointed uncomfortable, impatient look. “Well?” he demands. “Weren’t you leaving?” 

“Oh-- right,” he says, and does just that. Of course Jon wants to be left alone to his work, that’s always what he wants-- 

But Jon follows him out. Martin looks over at him, startled, and Jon stubbornly avoids even looking at him as he walks at his side. Closer than usual. 

He’s nervous, Martin realizes, and something in his brain sort of stalls. He doesn’t want to be alone, doesn’t want to leave the library on his own, just because he saw a little harmless spider. 

Martin’s admired Jon for the last few months because of how confident and mature he seems, the type of man who doesn’t yelp and flinch at something as silly and childish as a _ spider.  _ Given that, it makes absolutely zero sense how he suddenly overwhelmingly wants to hide Jon in a safe, reassuring hug, promising to protect him from all the spiders in the world. 

He follows Jon out of the library, and even all the way to his desk. He was always going back to the researcher wing, though, to fetch his things. It’s not a big deal. He watches Jon sit down at his desk in the warm yellow light of his desk lamp, the sharp angles of his face casting dramatic shadows over him. It’s not a big deal. He watches Jon go back to his work, not making a single movement to leave for his home, thinking about getting him something to eat, making him rest, holding him close and warm, touching him, kissing him. It’s not a big-- 

Jon reaches out for the tea Martin had made him a short while ago, drinks it, and unconsciously gives the small smile of someone who’s been pleasantly surprised by a perfectly tailored cup of tea. It’s the loveliest, softest smile he’s ever seen, and warmth floods him at the sight of it, at the fact that  _ he  _ did that. 

And then he turns around and walks out of the building, forgetting his coat on the way. 

“Martin,” Jon says, pressed close into the space between Martin’s looming height and the towering book shelf behind him. It’s warm and dark and safe in that space, and Martin wants to keep him there forever. He leans down to kiss him, and Jon leans up at the same time. Martin’s hands curl around him, into his hair, over his back, his arm, stroking and gripping. He’s so easy and right to hold. 

“Martin,” Jon gasps against his lips, hand pressing firm against his crotch, and Martin presses into it desperately, needily. An almost wounded sound leaves him. He needs for Jon to keep touching him. It, it’s wonderful. Like some hollow lonely space inside of him is being filled up with each warm, loving touch. He kisses at Jon, strokes him, touches him, holds him warm and close and his. He’s shuddering to pieces, holding Jon tightly like he’s his anchor. Jon presses searing kisses across his face. He’s naked. Martin wishes that he could see all of him, but he refuses to let go of him. 

“Does it feel good?” he asks. “Do you like it? Are you happy? Can I keep you?” 

“Yes,” he simply says, and Martin wakes up painfully hard and sweaty enough to stick to the sheets. He looks, bewildered and disoriented, at the clock at his nightstand, wondering where all of the books went. It’s three AM in the morning. His heart is thundering. He stares at the glowing red numbers until it slows down, and reality and common sense seeps back in. And then he covers his eyes with his arm and groans, mortified and despairing and still too horny for comfort. 

Jonathan Sims is a safely impossible crush, alright. Oblivious, ill tempered, and clearly perpetually irritated with Martin. Absolutely crushingly hopeless. 

He can’t believe that he’s fucked himself over like this, except it’s just exactly like him. Martin Blackwood sighs, and resigns himself to his fate. 


End file.
